On my way back to the accommodation I passed a noisy group of young men. They were celebrating with lots of food and alcohol. I didn’t dare to take a picture as one of them followed me and wanted me to join their group. After I convinced him with my humble chinese I really have to go back and look for my friends (but thank you 🙂 ) I passed by this man who was sitting alone drinking and eating. First he was looking very skeptically at me and I started to speed up. But after a blink of an eye he opened up and I no longer felt him to be dangerous. Later in my room I still thought of him and why he was sitting alone among all these celebrating people.

What strikes me again and again here in China is that the elderly care very touching for their grandchildren.
The downside of this is that many children have to grow up without their parents who work as migrant workers somewhere unreachable far away. What it will have for consequences shows only within a couple of years when the children have grown-up and have children themselves.

We had a short break on our way to Honghe/Yunnan. Honestly I don’t remember the village’s name. We had a nice chat with these friendly old men. They asked us why we are visiting their boring village if there are so much better cities like Beijing. With my humble mandarin I tried to tell them that I am mostly interested in people not in cities. The one sitting on the right is a retired teacher. They are over 80 Years old and almost as long best friends.